Thursday, August 04, 2005

Mobile phone porn craze sparks call for action in Cambodia

A teenage craze for sending doctored naked images of female celebrities to each other by mobile phones sparked a demand by a Cambodian minister for government action against pornography.

The local press in the mainly Buddhist nation has been in a frenzy in recent weeks over the sudden spread of pornographic images by phone after the mother of a pop singer spotted a photograph of her daughter sent to a phone.

While the government is powerless to monitor what images people are sending to each other by phone, Minister of Women's Affairs Ung Kantha Phavy told a press briefing that it should shut down indecent websites.

We "ask the government to block Internet ISPs which are used to transfer pornographic images, show sex sites and chat sites," she said, speaking after talks with legislators and non-government organisations on pornography.